The Cost of Free Apps: A New Smartphone?

I recently upgraded my iPhone, trading in a two-year-old 3GS for a new 4S. I didn’t do it to chase the coolness factor: call me old-fashioned, but I’m really not motivated to have the “latest and greatest.” What does motivate me, however, is that my tech devices actually work to my satisfaction.

And that’s why I traded in my phone: its battery life had gotten so bad that I couldn’t use it for more than an hour if it was not plugged in to the wall or to a computer.

Most days, that is not such a handicap. Usually I’m at my desk, in the car or at home, where I could easily charge my phone.

But the other day I was in the field, working with reporters covering a power outage on campus. I was on the scene, exchanging phone calls, e-mails and text messages while checking the university’s Facebook and Twitter feeds, when I suffered my own personal power outage: my phone died, right when I needed it the most.

So now I have a new phone with a brand-new battery, and I have dutifully imported all my important information, especially my apps. Problem solved, right?

Not so fast: maybe it was the apps all along. Especially the “free” ones that are filled with ads. This Lifehacker article by Adam Pash made me think about all the extra energy my battery has to burn to keep loading the next banner ad in the app I am using.

As the article says, maybe I really am “getting what I paid for”: free apps but at the cost of rapidly declining battery capacity. At that rate, paying $.99 for an ad-free app seems like a bargain.